Not everything in here might be applicable to your situation. Some advice might seem redundant and not at all fitting your lifestyle. However, your lifestyle is the biggest determining factor in your chances of becoming a victim of crime.

It is a proven fact, your lifestyle and the people you socialize with can and will make you a victim. Sometimes it is far worse; the company you keep and the situations you get yourself into, can and will make you a criminal. The choice is yours.

Do not set foot on the path of the wickedor walk in the way of evil men, Proverbs 4, 14 (NIV)

We were all made with a built-in compass for what is right and what is wrong. The right decisions in your life, turning away from the wrong people and the wrong situations, will make your life safer and productive.

So please try to use and implement as much as you can to stay safer. Also train and educate your family members/friends to ensure safety for all. You are responsible for your own personal safety, not the police, so stay observant and aware and maintain focus.

There is no reason to live in fear of crime and violence. There is however reason to take reasonable precautions. And in doing so, you will have deterred most criminals from choosing you as their victim. The harder you make it for the criminal to victimize you, the more likely he is to go ply his trade elsewhere. You won’t have stopped the criminal from being a criminal, but you will have stopped him from choosing you as a victim.

A – AWARENESS, AWARENESS, AWARENESS

Awareness is the life-saver. Awareness leads to avoidance, 90% of your success in NOT becoming a victim of crime is awareness and avoidance, 10% is self defence and dealing with the criminal encounter. It is very important to pay attention at all times to whatever is going on around you. It takes time to get used to being aware.

Start living aware today. Start thinking in terms of personal safety and safe lifestyle; start becoming aware of your life and your movements and interactions – living aware means living safe. It is not easy and takes effort. Start today and your life will change and you might have avoided potentially dangerous situations without even knowing it by simply not being an easy target.

“So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self controlled.”

1 Thessalonians 5:6 NIV

Becoming a victim or not, mostly depends on you being an easy and available target to any observing criminal – and believe it, there are far more criminals on the prowl for easy victims than you might think.

The vast majority of crime happens as a complete surprise to the victim. Not as a surprise because there were no warning signs or because the crime couldn’t have been avoided; but because the victim in most circumstances was not aware and alert and ignored danger zones and warning signs. Crime is situational, certain situations encourage the criminal, others deter. So once you know what to look for, you have made a first step to being safer.

Most criminals stalk their victims for a while, they observe before they make a move to make sure their victim is an easy one. They might even approach and do an “ïnterview”, a quick question or a verbal confrontation, or maybe even a bump and a shove, just to see how the victims react. If you are alert and aware, react confident and show that you know what’s going on, most criminals just look for another target.

Just by being and appearing aware and alert, by changing body language and movement patterns from being unaware and insecure to confident and alert, by scanning your surroundings and projecting a confident image, many criminals will turn away from you.

Every criminal wants an easy target, somebody who is unaware and not prepared, somebody who poses no danger to the criminal and doesn’t fight back. All criminals want something which doesn’t belong to them, and they want it here and now. They don’t want to work for it, they don’t want to take risks, they don’t want to fight – in most cases – and they don’t want to be caught.

In short, they are looking for an opportunity. If you deny this opportunity by being aware and alert, you avoid becoming a victim.

“The art of fighting without fighting” (Bruce Lee)

YOUR AWARENESS – THE COLOUR CODE SYSTEM

Most people stumble through life, blissfully unaware of the world around them, preoccupied with thoughts of work, or personal problems, or trivialities, with no thought to their immediate environment. By not paying attention to their surroundings, they place themselves in needless jeopardy and become victims.

By learning to observe your environment, constantly evaluate it, and react appropriately to what you see, you can achieve a certain degree of personal safety. This requires you to learn to shift up and down a scale of readiness, just like shifting gears in a car.

It is difficult for normal, rational, socialized, civilized people to grasp that they live in a society with people who are NOT normal, rational, socialized, or civilized. There are people out there who do not care about your hopes or plans for the future, they do not care about your family, they do not care about the pain and suffering they inflict-they just don’t care.

WHITE: Completely unaware of your surroundings, the ideal target for any criminal. You see danger only when you are in the middle of it and it’s too late to prepare, run or fight

YELLOW: A relaxed state of general alertness, with no specific focal point. You are not looking for anything or anyone in particular; you simply have your head up and your eyes open. You are alert and aware of your surroundings. You are difficult to surprise, therefore, you are difficult to harm. You do not expect to be attacked today. You simply recognize the possibility.

ORANGE: This is a heightened state of alertness, with a specific focal point. The entire difference between Yellow and Orange is this specific target for your attention, e.g. a suspicious person in a suspicious situation. You are mentally and physically preparing yourself for a potentially dangerous situation, avoidance is key to survive, look for evasive action and get out.

RED: You are ready to defend yourself! You may, or may not, actually be fighting, but you are MENTALLY PREPARED to fight. In many, or perhaps even most, circumstances where you have gone fully to Red, you will not actually physically do anything at all. The entire process of escalating from Yellow, to Orange, to Red, then de-escalating right back down the scale as the situation is resolved, occurs without any actual physical activity on your part. The key is that you were mentally prepared for a conflict, and can physically act if necessary.